Sorry, this feature is only available to TPM Prime members

Dont ever miss an article again.New To You shows you everything posted since your last visit in a simple, scrollable list.
More Info →

Zoe Schlanger

Zoë Schlanger is Frontpage Editor at TPM. Zoë was a TPM intern in 2011, and prior to returning here she was editor in chief of NYU Local, the alternative independent student news site at NYU. Zoë has interned at places like the Nation, InsideClimate News, The Rachel Maddow Show and Gothamist. She can be reached at zoe@talkingpointsmemo.com.

The State Department Bureau of Consular Affairs published the list of 21 U.S. embassies, all located throughout the Middle East, that will be closed Sunday because of an unspecified terror threat.

The State Department also issued a worldwide travel alert for August due to an al-Qaida threat, "particularly in the Middle East and North Africa, and possibly occurring in or emanating from the Arabian Peninsula."

After already spending $1 billion on it, Duke Energy announced Thursday the company was dropping plans to build a $24.7 billion nuclear reactor complex in Levy County, Fla., according to the New York Times.

Most of the $1 billion had been collected from customers, but it cited a change in Florida rules that the company said raised doubts on whether it would be allowed to collect from customers for the construction.

The Lorraine Mondial Air Balloons festival at a former NATO airfield in eastern France broke two records this week: the first by launching 408 piloted hot air balloons within an hour on Wednesday, and the second by launching 391 balloons at once on Thursday, for the biggest simultaneous balloon launch ever, the Associated Press reported.

Interior Secretary Sally Jewell addressed her employees Thursday on the “moral imperative” to address climate change, reminding them they are able to "actually do something about it," E&E News reported.

“I hope there are no climate change deniers in the Department of Interior,” she said.

If any climate change deniers did work in the department, Jewell continued, they should visit the federally managed lands where the changing climate is visible. She listed the melting permafrost in Alaska and the shrinking snowpacks in the Sierra Mountains as examples, according to E&E.

Jewell also gave a “shout-out” to Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Michael Connor, who was nominated by Obama for the deputy secretary of Interior post, E&E reported.

“I couldn’t be happier President Obama nominated Mike for this role,” she said. “We will complement each other’s skills.”

The use of armed guards on pot farms in the California wilderness are among the things making environmental regulation in the state more difficult, the Associated Press reported Thursday.

Local officials in Northern California recently asked state regulators to step in and help protect streams and rivers from some of the damage being done by the marijuana growers, often Mexican cartels, which clear the land, divert water and poison wildlife with toxic chemical runoff.

But according to the AP, state regulators have refused because of the dangers of dealing with potentially armed growers.

"We simply cannot, in good conscience, put staff in harm's way," Paula Creedon, the head of the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board, a state agency, wrote in a recent letter to local officials quoted by the AP.

People who frequent the wilderness, like wildlife officials and hikers, sometimes report coming across armed men guarding major pot farms. The AP reported that's one of the reasons an agency, the California Department of Fish & Wildlife, gave its wardens more powerful weapons.

Correction: This post has been updated to clarify several aspects of what the Associated Press originally reported. It has also been corrected to show that wildlife wardens were the ones who recently received more powerful weapons.

San Diego Mayor Bob Filner's attorney wrote a letter Tuesday asking the city to pay Filner's legal fees on the basis that the mayor never underwent sexual harassment training, suggesting that the city is liable in Filner's ongoing legal debacle, the L.A. Times reported.

"The city has a legal obligation to provide sexual harassment training to all management level employees," wrote attorney Harvey Berger, regarding payment of the legal bills Filner has accrued in defense of the lawsuit filed by his former communications director. "I have learned that many -- if not most -- people do not know what is and what is not illegal sexual harassment under California law."

Investigators said they found he was carrying a 9mm pistol and 34 rounds of ammunition. Federal investigators later found an additional 111 rounds of ammunition in his car, according to authorities.

The FBI said he claimed to have a concealed weapons permit. Delavergne was charged Wednesday with posessing a phony CIA badge, but he wasn't charged with any crimes related to the guns or ammunition, according to the AP.

Federal authorities have declined to say why Delavergne might have been at the movie theater, WWJ reported. He remained in custody, according to AP.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's administration has spent more than two years trying to put down an ongoing uprising calling for his own ouster, with a recent United Nations report putting the number of people killed in the civil war at upwards of 100,000.